D&D: Ma, Git the Shears, Them Sheep's Lookin' Wooly Agin'!

Quote from: Black Vulmea;522965D&D: Ma, Git the Shears, Them Sheep's Lookin' Wooly Agin'!

hahahahahaha

I see what you did, there.  

Quote from: Benoist;522955OK. Check out those terms' actual definitions in a dictionary. What you will find generally is that a story is an account, or recounting of events, whether real, or fictional. You will see "see also narrative", which will be described using similar terms, like an account of events, experiences or the like, whether true or fictitious.

The key part here is the "account of," or "the recounting," the fact that a story is "told", as in "a tale." This implies you are looking at the events or experiences being recounted from the point of view of the one who is "telling the story."

This is all plain English, not Forge speech.

When I play a role playing game, I do not "create a story", or "tell a narrative". I am part of the events as they unfold live around me, in my mind's eye, as I role play my character as a player, or role play the environment as a GM. I "live" the game world and experience it in first person. I do not participate to an RPG as a co-author setting out to build a story.

The story is the stuff I can tell folks about AFTER it's been played, as though I had lived through it "for real". That's the difference, and it affects the way we think about games, their worlds, the scenarios from which adventures spring spontaneously in actual play, and ultimately, the way the games themselves are designed, and the enjoyment, or lack thereof, I get out of them.

I think in another thread somewhere you were also participating in a discussion concerning "story" and "narrative, " and I could not clearly pick up on what your point was, but this post makes it clear for me.

While I am not clear on how this Forge Narrativism necessarily affects game design, I can see the difference between a player viewing his character as a player in a play that has not been written yet and a player taking on a role and acting as his character would. The former knows he is in a play, not being able to divorce himself from the metagame; the latter just acts and reacts.

This leads me to another thought. The only sessions that really matter to me are the ones that we still talk about. I think this is because a compelling story had developed. None of the more adventure path or railroad sessions resonate today with us today. It is those sessions where the feeling that the characters had an effect that was not predetermined that we seem to remember most. I think that is because the characters became alive, more so because of the stories we told afterwards.

I think a quick example is that during an early adventure I DMed, a halfling rogue climbed a tree in the middle of a battle to get a better view--couldn't see over any of the front-line fighters. This took several rounds of not attacking and by the time she was ready to attack the battle was over, but the fighters had taken a lot of damage. It became a long running gag that the halfling would climb a tree to avoid danger because of that one action. It became a story through the retelling. When it happened it was a simple tactical maneuver. She didn't climb a tree to be talked about later; it was a natural action that helped define her character for the other players.

Now the full point is that I was running a very bad railroad. I was trying to weave a story of the world. The players had some control but I basically led them around by the nose. No one remembers what happened during that adventure or much about the world--if they do they don't bother talking about it--but they still to this day laugh about the coward halfling climbing a tree, against Julia's protests.

Now I separate my creative fiction from my gaming. When I wear the DM cap, I just sit back and set the stage and let the players enjoy. If we talk about it afterwards, I think I did my job well.

Quote from: Benoist;522955OK. Check out those terms' actual definitions in a dictionary. What you will find generally is that a story is an account, or recounting of events, whether real, or fictional. You will see "see also narrative", which will be described using similar terms, like an account of events, experiences or the like, whether true or fictitious.

The key part here is the "account of," or "the recounting," the fact that a story is "told", as in "a tale." This implies you are looking at the events or experiences being recounted from the point of view of the one who is "telling the story."

This is all plain English, not Forge speech.

When I play a role playing game, I do not "create a story", or "tell a narrative". I am part of the events as they unfold live around me, in my mind's eye, as I role play my character as a player, or role play the environment as a GM. I "live" the game world and experience it in first person. I do not participate to an RPG as a co-author setting out to build a story.

The story is the stuff I can tell folks about AFTER it's been played, as though I had lived through it "for real". That's the difference, and it affects the way we think about games, their worlds, the scenarios from which adventures spring spontaneously in actual play, and ultimately, the way the games themselves are designed, and the enjoyment, or lack thereof, I get out of them.

Thank you for clarifying your position, given it's FUCKING EXACTLY what I mean when I use those terms,  it means as a GM I am doing the EXACTLY the same as I do as a player but my character is not just a singular role or character or actress but the whole DAMN world outside said players, not some set for the players to weave a story in some vacuum like a 4e encounter.

What I'm trying to say is the "story" is whatever action the players do in response to what me (the world) does, narrative is what the *Bard does or I do BETWEEN sessions.

*Narrative being practically the Bard's purpose it's okay by me if they do so.

OK. The tragedy is that it's not just a question of semantics. Once you realize the distinction I am making here, you can see how words like "storytelling", "story", "narrative" and all derivatives thereof fail to apply when describing what's really going in your mind's eye as you play the game.

The misuse of these words gradually led to a huge mistake: instead of realizing that these terms, and the concepts they actually depict, fail to apply to RPG, some people grew frustrated with trad RPG thinking they could be made to be better tools to "build stories", compose "narratives", fairly spread around "narrative authority" between the participants of the game, the co-authors of the story, give means for players to "edit" the "scenes" of the story, use mechanics that only make sense from a dissociated, authorial point of view, such as the use of "Fate" points to change the destiny of your character, replay actions the character has already taken, or explaining away rules that do not make sense from the world's POV using narrative logic, such as is the case often with Martial exploits in 4e ("it's that one cool move at the end of the movie, dailies for fighters make sense!"), and so on, so forth.

The bottom-line here is: the concepts of story and narrative applied to a game as it is played (as opposed to recounting the events of the game to someone later on) is fucking kryptonite to my enjoyment of RPGs.

Quote from: DestroyYouAlot;522957Eh - when I was running d20 D&D, my players didn't give me any guff over it.  I kept'em pretty lean on magic, and they still steamrolled most stuff I threw at'em.*  I guess the answer here is "play with awesome players," which I know isn't super helpful.


* In my experience, AD&D-era players are playing a kind of "double jeopardy" in d20-era play - they're "playing D&D" in that they're playing carefully, stacking the odds in their advantage weighing risk vs reward, etc - and then when they actually GET in a fight, they can further "play d20", by playing the tabletop tactical game well, which, combined with smart play leading up to the fight, means they're practically impossible to effectively challenge.  d20 is only well-balanced with new players that only "play" the fight.

Definitely can see that. It was more a theoretical question, given I was hoping there was a better solution than "Queen Bitch".

Quote from: Marleycat;522973What I'm trying to say is the "story" is whatever action the players do in response to what me (the world) does, narrative is what the *Bard does or I do BETWEEN sessions.

*Narrative being practically the Bard's purpose it's okay by me if they do so.

I don't get behind your use of the terms that way for the reasons I explained. Bottom-line is: I would only call it a story once it has been played, and cannot use the term to describe the game AS it is being played. This misuse of the terms decades ago, since the dawn of the hobby really, is what ultimately led to aberrations like White Wolf Storytelling and the Forge. Ergo, I won't use the terms in this way at all.

PS: I do realize what you are saying and that you agree with me. I'm just saying that, to me, you are misusing the word "story" to say the same thing, and that's my problem with it. Hope it's clear(er).

Quote from: Benoist;522974OK. The tragedy is that it's not just a question of semantics. Once you realize the distinction I am making here, you can see how words like "storytelling", "story", "narrative" and all derivatives thereof fail to apply when describing what's really going in your mind's eye as you play the game.

The misuse of these words gradually led to a huge mistake: instead of realizing that these terms, and the concepts they actually depict, fail to apply to RPG, some people grew frustrated with trad RPG thinking they could be made to be better tools to "build stories", compose "narratives", fairly spread around "narrative authority" between the participants of the game, the co-authors of the story, give means for players to "edit" the "scenes" of the story, use mechanics that only make sense from a dissociated, authorial point of view, such as the use of "Fate" points to change the destiny of your character, replay actions the character has already taken, or explaining away rules that do not make sense from the world's POV using narrative logic, such as is the case often with Martial exploits in 4e ("it's that one cool move at the end of the movie, dailies for fighters make sense!"), and so on, so forth.

The bottom-line here is: the concepts of story and narrative applied to a game as it is played (as opposed to recounting the events of the game to someone later on) is fucking kryptonite to my enjoyment of RPGs.

It's obvious you and I are Mars---->Venus, but it doesn't make me wrong or some Forge person, get that straight right now before I start thinking I should get mad.  From my PoV we're literally talking right past each other, we fundamentally agree on the issue just not the terminology.

Quote from: Marleycat;522975Definitely can see that. It was more a theoretical question, given I was hoping there was a better solution than "Queen Bitch".

Hey, you gotta wear the Viking hat.  

Quote from: Marleycat;522979It's obvious you and I are Mars---->Venus, but it doesn't make me wrong or some Forge person, get that straight right now before I start thinking I should get mad.  From my PoV we're literally talking right past each other, we fundamentally agree on the issue just not the terminology.

Yes. I understand that. We seem to agree on everything. What I'm trying to make you realize is that by using "story" to describe "whatever the PCs do in response to you/the world", you are perpetuating the misunderstanding that RPG game sessions might be stories, thus helping the vicious cycle to go on.

Quote from: Benoist;522977PS: I do realize what you are saying and that you agree with me. I'm just saying that, to me, you are misusing the word "story" to say the same thing, and that's my problem with it. Hope it's clear(er).

Heh, then this post Ninja'd me.

*I'll try my best to not use the term but fact is, I was never in or knew about the Forge until about 5-6 years ago, seriously,

So give me a better term .....because I'm at a loss here.

Whenever I speak about that kind of thing, I try to qualify it in RPG terms or what actually happens at a game table. So I might say "the events in the campaign," or "the exchanges between the PCs and myself", or "the decisions of the PCs led to this or that development in the campaign". Instead of story or plot I'll speak of campaign, the stuff I prepped, the background, the game world, the adventure etc. I speak in RPG terms. You see what I mean?

Quote from: Benoist;522983Whenever I speak about that kind of thing, I try to qualify it in RPG terms or what actually happens at a game table. So I might say "the events in the campaign," or "the exchanges between the PCs and myself", or "the decisions of the PCs led to this or that development in the campaign". I speak in RPG terms. You see what I mean?

Yep, be a bit hard for me to type out, but yeah....clarify like "this happened in the game" or similar.  Yeah, that distinction I understand, especially since I'm more an instinctive rather than prepared GM.